[HN Gopher] RollerCoaster Tycoon was the last of its kind [video]
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RollerCoaster Tycoon was the last of its kind [video]
Author : zdw
Score : 224 points
Date : 2024-12-07 01:32 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| strongpigeon wrote:
| If someone ever gets the itch to play RCT again, I'd recommend
| taking a look at OpenRCT2 [0] for a bunch of QoL improvements
| (and MacOS support).
|
| [0] https://openrct2.org/
| kiba wrote:
| Is there an effort to make graphics for the game so that I
| don't have to go online to buy the files somewhere?
| mccolin wrote:
| I can vouch. Having OpenRCT2 and being able to play this
| amazing game again has brought me so much joy.
| binary132 wrote:
| I've been playing a copy of the original installment in the
| series off GoG with my kids recently and they love it.
| Thinking about setting up OpenRCT2 though.
| dcchambers wrote:
| OpenRCT2 is great on PC! Also consider Roller Coaster Tycoon
| Classic. It's a really good remaster of the original two games
| with modern touch-friendly controls and it has excellent iOS
| and Android versions that play really well on tablets.
|
| https://atari.com/products/rollercoaster-tycoon-classic#play...
| rkagerer wrote:
| I see a lot of beefs in the reviews about the UI (especially
| on smaller screens like phones). How's the game compare to
| RollerCoaster Tycoon Netflix, which is more highly rated in
| the Play store?
|
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netflix.NG.
| ..
| dcchambers wrote:
| Yeah the UI would be tiny on a phone and I wouldn't play it
| that way. But on an ipad-sized device it's a dream.
|
| That other game you linked is something else entirely. It's
| a modern mobile interpretation of RCT, but not at all
| related other than sharing a name and them. Where-as the
| one I linked IS the original legendary game. I would skip
| the modern mobile game personally, as I don't like that of
| game.
| bbx wrote:
| It's surprisingly great on iOS, even with the small UI
| factor. I managed to play it decently on an iPhone SE years
| ago. Would definitely recommend it if you want to play it on
| the go as it's still very fun to play nowadays.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| There's also Parkitect, which is a sort of spiritual successor
| to RCT2. It might be a little more accessible if you're trying
| to introduce kids to the RCT games.
| TylerE wrote:
| Sort of, but it plays not nearly as good and the coaster
| physics are bad.
|
| The thing I really don't like is that it puts too much
| emphasis on scenery and not the tides themselves.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| The thing you don't like is why I think it's pretty good
| for introducing younger players to the genre. Being able to
| build something that looks pretty in the game provides a
| much more immediate feedback than taking a few hours to try
| to understand the coaster mechanics.
| billfruit wrote:
| What about Planet Coaster?
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| Planet Coaster is good, but it has a vastly different
| aesthetic. RCT2 and 2 had that nice isometric grid which
| Parkitect has as well.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| OpenTDD is mentioned in the video and OpenRCT2 is also hinted
| at
| m0n01d wrote:
| Honestly the only reason I have a steam deck
| sippeangelo wrote:
| Worth noting is that OpenRCT2 has multiplayer co-op!
| thih9 wrote:
| The project's FAQ says that the original Rct2 is required; are
| there plans to also provide alternative assets, OpenTTD style?
|
| Edit: yes, work in progress at
| https://github.com/OpenRCT2/OpenGraphics
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| Can't wait to relive my childhood. Thanks :)
| TylerE wrote:
| One fun fact about RCT is that it was written almost entirely in
| x86 assembly. It used a small C++ wrapper to basically do a few
| DirectX calls to setup the display and make windows api calls,
| but the actual game engine, all the guest logic, etc was pure
| assembly. Same basic engine as Transport Tycoon Deluxe.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Addressed at 9:22, it is the one of the core parts of what this
| video is about
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Funny to see these comments here say basically the same thing as
| was said in the submitted video.
| xyzzy4747 wrote:
| Did he forget Minecraft? It was made by a solo developer. He's
| now a billionaire from it and bought one of the most expensive
| homes in LA.
| lifthrasiir wrote:
| He does mention the recent surge of indies including Minecraft
| at the very end.
| kranke155 wrote:
| No one watches the video.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Addressed at 15:14
| dangus wrote:
| Not really the same situation if you ask me. Minecraft hasn't
| been a solo project for a the vast majority of its lifespan.
| Mojang was a small team but it really hasn't been a solo effort
| since the very early days.
|
| RCT was basically start to finish developed by one person with
| some sound and graphics work done by a couple other people.
| CodeArtisan wrote:
| When Jens Bergensten joined Mojang (to work on Scrolls),
| Minecraft was quite advanced and already had the nether and
| red stone. Notch did not rely on any store and was using his
| personal paypal account that got blocked due to an anomalous
| amount of transactions.
|
| https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Java_Edition_Alpha_v1.2.0
|
| https://blog.omniarchive.uk/post/1096322756/working-on-a-
| fri...
| dangus wrote:
| Right, Jens joining is what I was referring to.
|
| It was "quite advanced" but at the same time very much in
| its infancy in terms of the timeline of the game.
|
| I personally don't think the game would have gone as far as
| it did if it continued as a solo project.
| DavidPiper wrote:
| Folks may also like the noclip documentary on RollerCoaster
| Tycoon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts4BD8AqD9g . It goes
| into more detail, particularly about what happened after RCT2,
| and has some perspectives from people in the OpenRCT2 community.
| Eduard wrote:
| is this the hundredth reheat of "they wrote Rollercoaster Tycoon
| in assembly language"?
| Slyfox33 wrote:
| I really don't understand people's obsession with this fact.
| Every game that was developed on consoles before the
| playstation was also written in its machines assembly language.
| It was extremely normal at that time.
| palmfacehn wrote:
| It may be due to the high level of bloat in contemporary
| software. People also find the demoscene interesting. JS1k
| games vs. 14mb React landing pages. Gaming isn't solely about
| the fantasy induced by the content. For some there is an
| appreciation of the underlying engineering.
| jchw wrote:
| Roller Coaster Tycoon is notable because:
|
| - It was relatively late. The heyday of coding games in
| assembler was years prior (maybe there were some exceptions
| in portable platforms?). Was there any other smash hit PC
| game in 1999 coded in x86 assembler?
|
| - It's a pretty substantially complex and large-scale game,
| at least relatively speaking. It's one thing to write a game
| like Tetris in assembler, RCT is magnitudes more complicated
| than the vast majority of games on e.g. the SNES. Doesn't
| mean the games are bad or anything, and there are probably
| exceptions. (I know the SNES in particular has a Sim City
| port, though it's pretty slow.)
|
| - It's not _just_ about assembler really, it 's about the
| whole mindset. RCT is very well-optimized. For example,
| gameplay mechanics are adapted (e.g. stretching the length of
| months, shaping algorithms for calculating scores and
| ratings, etc.) around reducing the number of multiplications,
| and even on fairly crummy computers of the early 2000s it was
| possible to have huge parks with a lot of guests running
| quite well. Contrasting RCT2 with RCT3 paints a pretty good
| picture, because if you ran both on contemporary computers
| for their respective releases RCT3 with its fancy 3D graphics
| and modern development practices couldn't handle a fraction
| the size of parks without becoming a laggy unplayable mess.
|
| I admit that I think people focus on it a bit much,
| especially since I'm not sure most people who repeat this
| fact actually understand what it means. But honestly, I'm
| willing to be arrogant enough to say I understand, and I
| salute. Writing scalable and complex code that actually
| _works_ in macro assembler is not at all impossible, but it
| 's certainly not easy. It requires a discipline that is not
| to be taken for granted.
|
| That said, I watched the video, and while it did talk on this
| point, it was largely about the death of hit games from small
| teams and the bedroom coder.
| dinkumthinkum wrote:
| I think it may have to do with the fact that most programmers
| today don't even know what a computer is. You can ask most
| "Software Engineer I's and II's" what the difference between
| the stack and the heap is and get some pretty strange
| answers. So, it is interesting for some to think about people
| that had some idea about it. I don't know.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| coworkers decades my senior at my last job didnt even know
| what pointers were :-/
| db48x wrote:
| Ouch.
| tomcam wrote:
| Oh my
| liontwist wrote:
| yeah it's just like writing a larger program in C. It takes
| longer to build up the basic primitives than you may be used
| to, but once you get going it's just programming.
|
| I think programmers just haven't had that experience, so it's
| other worldly.
| ndiddy wrote:
| It's brought up, but the main point of the video is that
| RollerCoaster Tycoon was one of the last major retail games
| made by a handful of people (Chris Sawyer for design and
| programming, Simon Foster for graphics, Allister Brimble for
| sounds/music), and managed to become the best selling computer
| game of 1999 despite going up against games made by teams of at
| least a hundred people. That's what he means by the game being
| "the last of its kind".
| BeefySwain wrote:
| Minecraft?
| TylerE wrote:
| Retail can years after the original indie release
| ehnto wrote:
| Later in the video he discusses how times have changed once
| more, and solo developments turning it commercial hits is
| still possible. I do feel Minecraft was close enough to RTC
| to say that it never really stopped being possible.
|
| But in general I think the video is just remarking how the
| industry evolved and it became significantly harder to
| compete against bigger studios in the 2000s and beyond. I
| think it is undoubtedly true that the benchmark for many
| types of games has risen beyond the capabilities of the
| average solo developer in terms of graphics, content and
| gameplay scope. But many types of games do not have the
| burden of high end graphics and a particularly motivated
| individual can still make breakthroughs.
|
| It gets easier every year now, whereas for a while it was
| getting harder every year.
| margalabargala wrote:
| This still happens. Stardew Valley for example.
| bzzzt wrote:
| That one is popular, but certainly nowhere bear nr 1 in the
| charts.
| eterm wrote:
| It's still top 10 played on steam, which is incredible
| really, and while it might never be number 1 best seller
| in the short term, it's probably out-sold many of the
| games that did get "number 1" in the year it was
| released.
| indrora wrote:
| The author specifically hails that the sands shifted once
| systems like Steam opened up to enable the publisher-less
| world.
| Tallain wrote:
| This is a video game history channel that usually goes a little
| more in-depth than that. Good production value, a soothing
| voice, and a nice ride through gaming's yesteryear -- often
| much better than others in the "genre" on YouTube
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Related:
|
| _OpenRCT2 - RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 in browser using emscripten_
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42318673
| HeYmaney wrote:
| I was around 10 the first time I played RCT. A friend of mine
| brought me a copy disk of his original one. I could install the
| game but not play since there was a protection against copied CDs
| with an error message. In a desperate attempt, I bruteforced the
| exe by clicking 50 times on it and suddenly the game magically
| started. I was so happy I started a dance of the joy and would
| then use this trick to play the game.
|
| To this day I still don't know how it was possible to bypass the
| protection.
| firecall wrote:
| I have no idea, but thats cool :-D
|
| Could have been some sort of Race Condition maybe, which is
| more likely on an older resource constrained system?
|
| Maybe if the copy protection process became unavailable, the
| game loaded anyway as a way of providing a better user
| experience?
|
| I'm probably being too generous there LOL
| Lammy wrote:
| RCT1 No-CD is as easy as editing a Registry key actually.
|
| -- Install the base game and both expansions normally.
|
| -- Copy and merge the `ObjData` and `Data` folders from the CDs
| directly into the install folder.
|
| -- Open RegEdit, navigate to `HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Fish
| Technology Group\Rollercoaster Tycoon Setup`, and change `Path`
| and `SetupPath` to the path to your install folder.
|
| Source: Did this just a couple months ago on my HITACHI FLORA
| 270HX.
| matsemann wrote:
| When playing The Sims as a kid, there were loads of
| expansions, but you only needed the last one in the chain you
| had installed to play. So if I had 1 and 2, and a friend 3
| and 4, I could buy 5 and then borrow my friends disks and
| install those.
|
| Or if it was a game for a LAN, just boot the game with the CD
| in, then pass the CD along for others to do the same.
| tomcam wrote:
| Co-op mode piracy
| tropicalfruit wrote:
| how's a 10 year old supposed to know that
| zamadatix wrote:
| They aren't, it's in response to the final line of
| curiosity to this day.
| indigoabstract wrote:
| The last developed in Assembly, but as he admits, not the last
| successful bedroom coder game.
|
| There are still a few successful solo developer or small team
| games even today. Manor Lords, Tiny Glade and Townscaper come to
| mind. But certainly fewer than 30-40 years ago.
| Xen9 wrote:
| Within 30 years the game development & gaming will have been
| integrated as an experience for the average game.
| proxysna wrote:
| Ahoy is one of the best creators on the platform. I'd would
| recommend his video about Polybius. Great stuff.
| https://youtu.be/_7X6Yeydgyg
| tim333 wrote:
| I was curious what happened to the programmer Chris Sawyer. From
| Wikipedia:
|
| > He volunteers with the media team at a local primary school.
| Sawyer travels the world to visit roller coasters as an
| enthusiast, and gave his "coaster count" at 770 in 2024.
|
| Here's a video of him checking out a roller coaster
| https://youtu.be/UU73g72NTHc
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